Present techniques for incorporating audio data within existing network transport systems tend to provide high quality audio information at the expense of network capacity. For example, telecommunications networks typically utilize one digital signal level 1 (DS-1) signal path operating at 64 kilobits per second to transport one voice channel. While such voice data is of a relatively high quality or fidelity, the bandwidth or network capacity required to transport such voice data is relatively high.
Therefore, it is seen to be desirable to provide a method and apparatus that balances the competing requirements of high perceived speech quality, high capacity, moderate processing requirements and robust performance. More particularly, it is seen to be desirable to provide such voice data via a network transporting voice data and non-voice data.